


Let Go

by shadraquarium



Series: Grasp [1]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-03
Updated: 2018-10-03
Packaged: 2019-07-24 11:19:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16174007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadraquarium/pseuds/shadraquarium
Summary: Poor Connor. Hank really needed to stop doing this to him. It wasn’t fair. Part of him--no, too much of him--knew that. But fairness didn’t come into his calculations when impulsivity and self-loathing were driving. He didn’t have a good reason to keep doing this.So he didn’t offer one.“How long does it take?”Hank almost missed the fact that Connor spoke.“How long does it take,” the android repeated, “before you learn how to finally let someone go?”





	Let Go

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you like fake m-dashes.

A click.

  
  
Exhale.

  
  
A whirr.

 

A click.

 

A sigh.

 

Hank set the revolver down on the kitchen table with too heavy a sound. It broke up the monotony of the ambient noise-- the hum of active electronics, the tapping of a ceiling-fan off center, and the thrumming of his own pulse in his ears.  
  
Eyes glazed with alcohol and listlessness slid to the front door, then back to his hands. He reached for his glass, exhaling loudly when he brought it to his lips and again when he received only a touch of the taste on his tongue.  
  
Fuck.  
  
He fumbled for the bottle instead, grasped the neck with too-strong a grip and slid it closer. He wasn’t thirsty. He didn’t want any more.  
  
He didn’t even want to be here. Doing this.

Again.  
  
He let go of the bottle.  
  
He picked up the revolver.  
  
Whirr.  
  
“Hank.” The voice was small, and soft. Distant, blurry in the way sound was sometimes, like you could see the edges of it melting into nothingness.  
  
Connor. He hadn’t heard him come in-- maybe he’d missed it. He’d been watching the door, waiting for him to arrive and spoil this little game of his. He was hoping for it, maybe.  
  
More than maybe.  
  
Hank set the revolver down on the table, gave enough of a fuck to point the barrel away from Connor, and then offered a lazy, mirthless smirk up at the android. “Can I _help_ you, officer?” he slurred, his smile stretched into a grin for the brief moment that he found his own joke amusing. It was a sub-par effort to break the tension of being caught, because he hadn’t drunk enough to miss the sting of embarrassment Connor’s presence brought. Because he knew better, he _did_ , but...  
  
Habits. They die hard.  
  
It was impossible to make out Connor’s expression-- the light from the foyer and his own unfocused gaze turned the android into a hazy silhouette with pulsing amber at his temple. He sat down across from Hank, hands resting lightly upon the table. Barely touching it.  
  
Hank watched those hands. Waited to see them reach for the gun. After he took the gun, he’d  take the bottle away.  
  
Connor did neither. He simply watched Hank, and Hank raised his gaze enough to sort-of focus on Connor’s face… area. They regarded each other without speaking.  
  
After an indistinct length of time, Hank wondered if there was something he was expected to do here-- some kind of script he’d forgotten the lines of, while Connor patiently waited for his cue.  
  
Poor Connor. Hank really needed to stop doing this to him. It wasn’t fair. Part of him--no, too much of him--knew that. But fairness didn’t come into his calculations when impulsivity and self-loathing were driving. He didn’t have a good reason to keep doing this.  
  
So he didn’t offer one.

“How long does it take?”  
  
Hank almost missed the fact that Connor spoke.  
  
“How long does it take,” the android repeated, “before you learn how to finally let someone go?”

It took too long for Hank to really grasp the question, his own sluggishness a sudden source of irritation. He grunted, reaching for the bottle. He was coordinated enough to pour himself another drink, which meant he hadn’t actually had enough yet, by some calculation he justified without a second thought.  
  
“I’m not in the mood for therapy tonight, Connor,” he said, picking up his glass and spilling some of the whiskey over his fingers while he topped it off, “You can fuck right off with that shit.” He took an artless gulp from his glass, keeping it against his lips as he swallowed, and peered at Connor from across the rim. Waiting for the sensible reply he’d stubbornly ignore or refute.  
  
It didn’t come. Connor was just watching him in silence, and the only reason Hank knew he hadn’t just dropped into stasis was the patternless blinking and spinning of that LED-- yellow, yellow.  
  
His gaze slid down to the revolver again, and smirked when he saw the yellow light flickering red in his periphery.

Hank didn’t reach for it. As far as he was concerned, the game ended when Connor caught him. That was part of the rules, right? It was one thing to put a bullet in his brain by himself, in the comfort of his own home.  
  
It was another to do it with an audience. He wouldn’t do that to Connor.

Hank finished off his glass, then poured himself another one as he waited for Connor to intervene.

Connor didn’t.  
  
Hank didn’t remember anything after that.

  
  
****

*******

 

 

It was morning, at least probably, and Hank felt like shit. His head throbbed, his heart was pounding its way up into his throat, and his mouth felt like someone left a dishrag in it all night. 

Fucking fuck. Waking up fucking blew.

If he had been lucky, he might have drifted back to sleep and escaped his misery, but even as he recognized that wishful thought his body found three new spots to start hammering with aches and the idea slipped away from him.  
  
Hank inhaled against his pillow and then released the breath with a loud and nearly satisfying groan, hands sliding up his own chest to cover his face.  
  
“Fuuuuck…”  
  
Hank slowly opened his eyes, wincing as daylight stabbed through his blurry vision--  
  
There was someone else here.  
  
It seemed like he already knew that, even before he could acknowledge the figure seated primly on the side of his bed, watching him. He didn’t even need to take note of the LED to know it was Connor.  
  
Of course it was Connor.  
  
Another groan, as Hank let his hands fall back to his chest. “Nn. Hey.” His own voice sounded like gravel caught in a wood chipper, and his throat felt similar.  
  
“Hey,” Connor answered quietly. His voice was soft-- it generally was, but there was a weightless, barely-there quality to it that Hank didn’t normally associate with the android. It was gentle, like he was maybe taking pity on Hank’s pathetic state.  
  
Mm, well, pity he could tolerate on morning like this.

It was hard to make out Connor’s expression as they regarded each other in silence. Hank would have expected Connor to start lecturing him by now, or have tried to herd him up and out of bed to begin his day, but instead it seemed like the android was just watching. Studying him.  
  
Hank wanted to make some kind of joke to fill the silence and diffuse the growing tension he felt under Connor’s gaze, but his ostensibly sharp wit has been dulled by poor sleep and alcohol, so the silence persisted.  
  
Hank let his eyes drift shut again.  
  
He felt Connor shift slightly on the bed, and suddenly there was a cool hand resting lightly against his forehead. It wasn’t unwelcome, Hank realized, and the coolness of it drew some of the ache away from his skull. The throbbing eased a little.  
  
For a moment, Hank felt something akin to peace. It was short-lived, naturally, as his own nerves eventually got the better of him. “You’re pretty quiet. I thought they programmed nurse androids to be a little more talkative,” he joked, cracking open an eye to look up at Connor.  
  
He thought he saw a smile, or whatever twitchy little motion Connor did that counted as a smile. Nothing else was offered.  
  
Hank sighed. “Hey, I’m… Sorry. About last night.” He shifted his gaze away, suddenly hyper-aware of the cool plastic hand that still rested on his forehead. He swallowed. “‘s not fair to make you deal with, uh, that.” _Me_ , he amended silently.

He could feel Connor stiffen-- saw him straighten up out of the corner of his vision. The bed creaked a little with the shifting weight. The hand on his forehead withdrew-- but only enough to gently brush back the bangs that clung to his forehead, sweeping them back behind his ears. The gesture was comforting, and honestly, probably too much so. More than Hank deserved from anyone, let alone Connor.

“It doesn’t matter,” the android said quietly, glancing back at Hank with another faint, but short-lived smile. “But you didn’t answer my question.” A pause. “I’d like you to, if you can.”

Que...stion? Hank supposes Connor might have asked him something, but hell if he could remember what it was. “You’ll, uh, have to remind me. I was kinda… you know.” Blitzed.  
  
Connor looked away again. “I asked about… letting go of someone. When the act of holding on to them is painful, and brings suffering, how does one navigate past dependency and accept that loss?”  
  
Hank was quiet. He remembered now, sort of-- Connor asking him that, trying to lead him to find a path away from his self-destruction because he knew his little lectures never worked. It was transparent, and honestly, a little aggravating. He knew Connor only wanted to help, that he, hell, _cared_ enough about Hank to even try, but what he was asking for… that wasn’t an easy thing to do.  
  
If it was, Hank might have even tried.

The low, throbbing discomfort quaking through his head began to reassert itself, and Hank shut his eyes again, sighed and turned his head back into the pillows. He missed the cool touch of Connor’s hand, but he didn’t know how to ask for it again. If he even could.  
  
Connor’s question hung there in the silence. He didn’t want to think about it.  
  
Where would he even begin?

 

 

*******

 

 

The sounds of the DPD bullpen faded in and out of Hank’s awareness. He was drowsy from lunch, head resting in a hand, elbow braced on his desk. He wasn’t really sleeping, just, you know, checking his eyelids for holes.  
  
Something slick ran over the edge of his hand. It was--fuck-- was he drooling? Hank straightened immediately and dropped his hand to his stomach to wipe the evidence off on his shirt. He wiped the rest off with his other wrist, clearing spit from the corner of his mouth and his beard. In a room full of seasoned police detectives, Hank still found himself thinking that, probably, no one had seen that.  
  
Except for Connor, of course, who was perched on the desk directly next to him-- which Hank noticed with an abrupt full-body jolt and a hiss of surprise. “JESUS fuck, Connor, don’t just-- sneak up on a guy like that!”  
  
On the other hand, given how close he was sitting right now, Hank surmised his partner was blocking everyone else’s view of him while he dozed off. The thought gave him pause, and he wondered if it might have been on purpose.

“Lieutenant,” Connor greeted-- gently. Kindly. No hint of a smirk as far as Hank could tell, but he glanced up at Connor’s face just to check for one.  
  
He cleared his throat, brow raised as he regarded the android expectantly. They talked about this.  
  
Connor looked down at him, blinking once… twice. And then, with a satisfying amount of irritation flashing across his features, he closed his eyes and sighed, correcting himself. “Hank.”  
  
Hank leaned his head back, smirking up at him. “What can I do for you, Connor?” he asked, more smugly than he deserved for such a juvenile victory.

Connor regarded him for a long moment, the serious expression he wore softening into something else for a moment-- something uncharacteristically gentle, as his eyes flickered across Hank’s face. The moment passed, and something heavier reasserted itself on his features. “Have you given any consideration to my question?” he asked-- and then paused, adding, “About paralyzing and destructive emotional attachment.”

Hank narrowed his eyes a little, tilting his head to stare up at Connor over the bridge of his nose. There was a strange urgency to his tone-- something Hank hadn’t picked up on before, but he felt certain it’d been there each time he’d asked.

He honestly wasn’t sure what to make of it.

“Didn’t we agree on no personal questions during work hours?” Hank said, deflecting while he chewed on that thought--why that urgency seemed out of place. The stilted nature of it, far removed from the conversational tone Hank had grown used to since Connor’s deviancy. What had changed?

Connor turned his head away, offering Hank only his profile-- jaw clenched, LED hidden from view. He clearly knew that Hank was fucking with him now-- being difficult, because he could be, and because the topic was uncomfortable. Still, the android didn’t go back to his own desk. He sat there, waiting for an answer.  
  
One he was definitely not going to get-- not at work, not any time soon. Hank shook his head, grunting in amusement. He set his elbow back on his desk again, chin in one cupped hand as he closed his eyes. He knew without having to look that Connor was watching him again, but he didn’t care. He wasn’t going to be coerced into talking about that heavy shit-- not at work, and not.... when he just wasn’t ready. 

Also, and perhaps more importantly, Hank _liked_ being a pain in the ass to Connor. The guy gave as good as he got, and hell, it was probably the only way Hank even remembered how to show honest affection anymore. Connor would just have to fucking deal.  
  
Hank dozed off again, a faint smile playing across his lips at the thought.

 

 

*******

 

 

It seemed that, with enough repetition, the question Connor so desperately wanted him to answer wound its way into his mind and refused to leave. And so, Hank thought about it. Really thought about it.

Well, he thought about thinking about it, at least. All he really ended up doing was chasing his own mind in circles before ending up here again, at Riverside Park.

If he had mixed feelings about the place before he met Connor, his emotions were positively scrambled coming back here again now. But it was a habit, and habits die hard, even when his mind struggled with vivid memories of a beautiful, joyful laughing child-- and equally vivid memories of pointing a loaded, cocked gun between the eyes of his partner.  
  
His friend.

It was snowing, Hank had managed to procure some shitty beer, and he and Connor were lost to their own individual contemplations for what seemed like a long, long time. Rather than perching on the usual bench, Hank had his forearms resting on the barrier next to the water’s edge. He had a bottle in his hand, but wasn’t drunk enough yet to not feel the biting cold threatening to numb his fingertips completely. He just needed something to dull the edge of the chilly night, and to keep his thoughts from spinning out of control every time he tried to approach Connor’s question with the seriousness it probably deserved.

It just… was fucking _hard_ to do things to better himself--to follow the android’s careful guidance towards a healthier, brighter future that Hank couldn’t even imagine without intense trepidation. He didn’t remember what it was like to be a functional human being, and even knowing this status quo was unsustainable didn’t keep the fear of change from dragging him back into his miserable little hole night after night.

But Connor… Connor was dragging him back, also. Night after night. And if ever there was a creature more stubborn than Hank Anderson, its name was Connor.

He allowed himself a glance to the side-- over to his right, where Connor stood, leaning his back against the railing, arms crossed and watching Hank with gentle curiosity, much of the intensity that had lived in his gaze soothed into something more expectant. Still, his dark brown eyes were too deep in the snow and lamplight, and Hank had to look away, casting his gaze back across the river as he took a halfhearted sip at his beer.

“... I did go to therapy, you know. After…” After everything. “With my ex, by myself sometimes, even. I went, and I listened, and I remember some stuff, but…” He shrugged, and took another drink to give his mind a chance to navigate past the intense wave of aversion that clammed up his throat.

“People talk about navigating the stages of grief or whatever, but none of that shit fucking matters until you have enough of yourself left over at the end of the day to try.” And Hank… he didn’t. Not when it took all that he had just to pretend he cared about his job, or pretend that he cared about his life, or that he cared about anything other than the allure of silence on the far side of a bullet that he just couldn’t muster the will to fire.

“I quit therapy, fell into a bottle, and never quite drowned. I figured that was good enough, right? I kept my job somehow, I kept Sumo alive, and I just… kept going through the days. Like… time passed by, but I wasn’t moving forward. Just waiting it out-- trying to speed up the end with self-destructive habits and edgy shortcuts like playing the game.” _Russian Roulette_.  
  
He shrugged, took another drink of beer, and grimaced. It left a bad taste in his mouth, he decided, and he pitched it, half full, over the barrier and into the dark waters. He half-expected some kind of disapproving comment from Connor, but one never came. Small blessings in awkward silence.

“Like I told you, I don’t even have the balls to fucking commit to the exit strategy, so all I’ve done is flounder around uselessly and make people like you clean up my messes because you have the audacity to… I dunno, fucking give a shit about me. I dunno why you’re asking me about letting shit go, because I’ve been in this hole for years and I haven’t even tried looking for a way out that doesn’t involve a bullet.”

Secure in the knowledge that that was probably the _least_ satisfying attempt at an answer Connor could have possibly received from him, Hank steeled himself against whatever frustrated, disappointed expression the android had inevitably downloaded and pasted on his stupid, soft face. He mustered something that felt like courage, and turned to regard him.

But Connor wasn’t looking at him. He was turned slightly away, head bowed as a hand carded through his own (formerly) perfect hair. At least Hank called the frustrated part, but he hadn’t expected to see the android look quite so…  
  
Lost.

“Connor?” Ah, fuck. Hank sighed heavily as he ran freezing fingers through his own hair and turned back to the water, heart pounding in his chest. He tried to run back through his words-- what did he say that could have left Connor looking like he’d been punched in the gut?

He probably shouldn’t have been such a fucking downer-- that was where honesty got you, wasn’t it? That was where Anderson got you, when you let yourself care about him. Hank was used to being a depressed sack of shit, but he really didn’t like the idea of Connor--who was still learning how emotions could really wreck your shit-- suffering from Hank’s second-hand self-torture.

“... yeah, glad we had this talk,” he muttered, dropping his arm back to the metal railing as he quietly resolved never to open this particular can of worms with Connor again. He didn’t need this-- this was Hank’s problem to deal with, Hank’s mess to clean up. And he knew that if he really cared about Connor, he’d actually fucking _do_ something instead of just taking the blame and still letting it fester.  
  
Because he _did_ care about Connor, and it wasn’t a sense of debt or reciprocation that made him want to try to climb out of the darkness he’d fallen into. It wasn’t that he needed to-- he didn’t. He just… He just wanted to.  
  
And he didn’t want to look too closely at it, because the reasons why-- well, they didn’t matter.

Because after all this time, Hank Anderson finally wanted to get better. That was enough, wasn’t it?

 

 

*******

 

 

Seated on the couch in his living room, Hank’s eyes drifted over the same sentence on his tablet for the fourth time before he realized he hadn’t actually been reading it for a while. He’d been thinking.  
  
And he wanted a drink.

There was no beer in the house. There was whiskey, but it was hidden away, and Hank wasn’t ready to reveal one of his few remaining hiding spots while Connor was there, sitting on the other end of the couch. He’d been outplayed, tonight. Shit.  
  
It felt like it’d been a while since he spent a night like this sober. It felt unfamiliar-- a little strange, a little disjointed, a little wrong? Or a little too real, maybe. The TV was on, showing some college game he didn’t actually care about, and there was Connor, seated an arm’s length away, eyes closed and running some kind of diagnostic thing, Hank could only assume. Or surfing porn in his head, or whatever deviants found interesting to do with their supercomputer brains and easy access to the internet.  
  
Hank watched him over the glowing edge of his tablet, too aware that he was staring. Too aware that he was thinking too much about things that he had no business thinking about. His gaze traced the profile of Connor’s nose, the artificially good posture he held on Hank’s ratty old couch, and the placid expression that he always found slightly unnerving-- because it was too calm, too content to exist in a world like theirs. Nobody deserved to look so free of worry. Not when they were still alive.

He let his gaze fall back to his tablet, sighing slowly and skimming further down the article he’d been reading-- something about the recovering ecosystem in northern Michigan, and the resurgence of native river fish to levels that hadn’t been seen since 2015. He wasn’t as interested in the science or even the environmental reasons for the recovery-- Hank liked articles like this because the good writers really knew how to describe a location.

When it came to a vivid imagination, Hank felt he was slightly above average, but even he couldn’t help but be sucked in by descriptions of river bends and cool fall mornings. He could see himself there, with mist rising off of the slower waters as the sun slowly warmed the world around them.

As a younger man, Hank had fled the city as often as he could manage, seeking that connection to nature, and to things far grander and more beautiful than he’d ever be. It made him feel small, and honestly? He liked that feeling. It made it seem like his problems weren’t as big as he felt they were-- that life itself was a thing that didn’t care about your stress and your sadness and your empty life, and that it dared to be beautiful because it simply wanted to.

Hank didn’t know if he could ever move past his own damage enough to fully embrace that kind of feeling again, but he couldn’t help but think that Connor might appreciate it on some level. Life recognizes life… surely the android would at least gain something out of experiencing something outside of the city.  
  
Or, it would perplex and confound Connor, which in and of itself would be hilarious and worth any trouble it was to drag him on a day trip to one of Hank’s old favorite spots, a place he hadn’t been to since… …

Since before.

A wave of _**REGRET**_ surged up into his gut, followed by aching _**WRONG**_ , and the breath-arresting feeling of _**NEVER AGAIN**_.  
  
No. He couldn’t. He wasn’t ready yet.  
  
There was no way he could go there and not see only what wasn’t there anymore, and for all he told himself he was going to start down the road to something that looked like recovery, he didn’t think he could possibly confront those memories yet.

… but maybe... it would be a step in the right direction to at least try. He could always leave-- hell, he was no stranger to failure, and had little shame left to preserve. He wouldn’t be going alone, either. There’d be someone there who understood, maybe, why it was so fucking hard. Or at least, accepted that it was fucking hard, and yet, still stayed.  
  
“Hey Connor,” Hank drawled loud enough to pull the android’s attention away from whatever internal processes he was running as he glanced up-- and froze as he realized Connor was already looking at him-- no, watching him. Studying him, _that_ he could recognize. It didn’t unnerve him in the way that he thought it should. Maybe he’d become used to it at some point.

“... so you, uh… haven’t ever been fishing before, right?”  
  
They both knew he hadn’t, of course, and Hank figured they both knew that would probably soon change.

 

 

\---

 

 

The spot by the river didn't look quite the same as Hank remembered. Time passed-- trees grow, riverbanks shift. It was… a relief. The pang he expected to feel-- the **_REGRET WRONG LOSS NEVER AGAIN_** was there, but it felt duller-- like an echo.

The last time he came here there was a wife, and warmth, and a little boy who shined with a light that pierced his heart every time he took a moment to marvel at him. That day it had been sunny, with a light breeze. It had been perfect. That was a memory that sparkled brilliantly, and each flash of light struck him like a blade. He endured it, because he felt like he needed to.  
  
Today was different, anyway-- it was overcast and muggy, and Hank felt sweaty. Heavy. Sluggish.

Hank felt like he was real-- as if he hadn’t been up to this point.

He hazarded a glance over his right shoulder at Connor, ever just an arm's length away, expecting to see the android watching him with that weird intensity he'd practically weaponized recently.

To his relief, and maybe a little delight, Connor was looking around with wonder, taking in the dense trees and wild growth with wide eyes. He was distracted, LED spinning soft yellow as he took in everything around him.

"Shit, I forget sometimes you haven't really gotten to do stuff like this yet," Hank said as he quirked a smile. "Welcome to nature, Connor! It's dirty, but it's the good kind of dirt. Well, probably.” Fuck if he knew anything about dirt, and he hoped the android wouldn’t try to sample any just to make a point.

Connor briefly snapped out of his ~~weird~~ ~~kind of cute~~ daze to look at Hank, curiosity written all over his ~~weird~~   ~~kind of cute~~ face. "What?" He looked to the riverbank, then down at the tackle box and folding lawn chairs he was holding. The wonder that had softened his features faded into something more like muted befuddlement, and the gentle yellow rotation of his LED indicator spun into something more intense.

Hank recognized exactly where this was heading, and he cut Connor off before the android could make some irritating observation or ask an uncomfortable question. "Use that fancy brain of yours to pick the best spot to set the chairs up," he said, turning away from Connor and starting down towards the banks of the river, "I'm gonna try to find that good spot we found last time..."

"Last time?"

Hank grimaced at his own words. Shit. The fishing poles and cooler he carried were suddenly much too heavy in his arms, and he sighed, setting them down before his sweaty palms lost their grip. **_REGRET WRONG LOSS NEVER AGAIN_** pressed down upon his shoulders, and Hank took that weight and set it, too, gently upon the ground at his feet.

The feelings remained. Not gone. Still there. Always would be.

"I, uh... yeah," Hank began, not looking at Connor. He looked at the flowing water instead, and the age-worn boulders, and the bugs that flitted about, mostly in his peripheral. Leaves shifted, boughs of great trees swayed just enough to remind the world of their mobility. They were alive.

Cole's death hadn't changed that, and a part of Hank balked, as if genuinely surprised to realize this. Life persisted-- moved on anyway, despite the **_WRONG LOSS NEVER AGAIN_** forever lingering at the edges of his heart _._

At his shoulder, with a gentleness that Hank had again forgotten the android was capable of, Connor said, "We're here because... you're creating a new memory."

Hank was taken aback by Connor's question-- his observation? Was he that obvious about what he doing here? The astuteness of it threw him off, but Hank shrugged a shoulder at himself more than Connor. "Yeah-- well, no, more like-- I mean. Kinda?"

Not about to let Connor start coming to conclusions yet, Hank shook his head and continued. "I just thought... maybe it'd be helpful, y'know? To see it. See reality. Just..." Hank didn't really have a thought to finish-- maybe there was a concept there, an abstract idea of what it was he was actually trying to do, but it slipped away from him before he could even try to capture it.

"See reality," Connor repeated quietly, as if speaking the words made the concept any less bullshit than Hank decided they had been, in retrospect. The android shuffled forward to appear in his peripheral vision again, and Hank reflexively glanced over at him, meeting his gaze for just a moment.

Connor looked away quickly-- too quickly, Hank thought. "And is it helping?" Connor asked.

Hank looked back towards the river. "I dunno. Maybe." Maybe it was possible-- that he could walk away from here and finally leave a piece of his burden behind.

 

 

*******

 

 

It was night. Probably, anyway.

Hank was on the floor of his bathroom, drunk. He’d found his spare bottle-- out of desperation, he’d told himself, it was an emergency, it was _worth it_ \-- and sunk into the comfort of his alcoholic haze, alone.  
  
Or not alone. Connor was standing there-- and Hank _swore_ he’d thought to lock the door to avoid this-- avoid Connor seeing this-- but the door was shut and Connor was there. It kind of pissed him off.  
  
It mostly made him feel like a piece of shit.

He was disappointed, Hank was sure, but the man couldn't bring himself to look at Connor's face to be certain. He took a long, deliberate swig from the bottle of whiskey, because he was a stubborn asshole and he was in this deep, so might as well piss Connor off instead, because that seemed better than just disappointing him.

Hank leaned against the side of the toilet, head resting against the ceramic tank as he smacked his lips and plastered a lopsided smirk on his face. He wanted to drive it home-- wanted to show Connor what a mistake he’d made in trying, in caring, in always being there when Hank was at his worst. He threw a glance up to Connor's face, to see if he'd accomplished anything.

Connor's affect was neutral-- which Hank interpreted to mean he was pissed-- or, Hank figured he was pissed. He was probably pissed? "Are y'pissed now, Connor?" he finally just asked.

Carefully, with perfect poise and balance, Connor sat down on the edge of the bathtub and folded his hands in his lap, looking straight ahead, at the far wall.

And then, in a way that was decidedly, achingly human, the android slowly curled in on himself, slumping until his elbows sank between his knees.

"... it’s really hard, isn't it?" Connor asked, squinting down at the floor before he turned his head to look at Hank. "Difficult. Frustrating. Maybe impossible." He didn’t seem disapproving of Hank's current state, just… resigned. Maybe he already gave up on him, Hank considered. Probably for the best.

"Sorry to disappoint," Hank muttered. He wasn’t sorry, though. Was he?

Connor didn't reply. He just looked... sad. Hank could see the reflection of his LED in the dingy shower tiles-- yellow, yellow, red, yellow, red.

In the corner of his awareness, his burdens crept close again.

**_REGRET. WRONG. LOSS._ **

_**NEVER AGAIN.** _

… Ah.

Slowly, purposefully, Hank lifted an arm and enthusiastically shoved the bottle of whiskey over the edge of the tub,  ~~grinning~~ grimacing at the sound of the clatter and shattering glass. Connor jerked upright and then stared at him, clearly taken aback.

“If there’s a… statistical chance of… something or other, y’know… Fuck impossible, right?” Hank slurred.

 

 

*******

 

  
The android was a constant companion of late, or so it had seemed. Hank found he struggled to focus when Connor wasn’t there, dutifully (happily, maybe) helping him endure these attempts at sobriety. The headaches, the fatigue, the too-much-coffee and the crawling feelings in his nerves kept him distracted and it was hard to focus on things that weren’t right in front of him.  
  
It was a fucking shitty way to exist. It didn’t resemble anything he’d heard about what happened when you got sober, either-- the withdrawal symptoms, they didn’t really line up to what he expected. Did they? Fuck, he couldn’t actually remember. He just felt like shit, that was all he could be sure about.  
  
But Connor helped him keep his momentum.They conversed often, pulling Hank’s thoughts away from the dark places they tended to settle. While there remained a deeper intensity (impatience) in Connor’s gaze that Hank still picked up on now and then, the android’s pushy, pointed questions relating to Hank’s poor coping mechanisms had started to give way to something more like comfortable small talk-- noted curiosities, observations, and some of the more benign annoyances that Hank hadn’t realized he’d missed so much. When was the last time…? He couldn’t remember, but he was happy to have it back. Maybe it was because he was making something that looked like progress, so Connor could relent a little in his pushy version of helpfulness, thank the fucking stars above.  
  
Still, something nagged at him about Connor’s demeanor-- something he was overlooking, or had forgotten, maybe? It was just a hunch, one of those little things he’d learned to chase down as a Detective and had given him the insights he needed to earn that promotion to Lieutenant.  
  
Well, before he fucked _that_ all up, anyway, but even all the booze and the burgers hadn’t managed to drown that extra sense out completely.

Today found them in the park, walking Sumo. Exercise, although Connor seemed reluctant to agree that it truly qualified as such, but as far as Hank was concerned it got his fat ass off the couch outside of work hours and the android was just going to have to find it good enough.

But Hank _really_ wasn’t feeling great today, and he’d tuned out of whatever conversation Connor was mostly carrying by himself anyway.

“Hank?”

He hadn’t even noticed his partner had gone silent up until he said his name.

“Er, yeah?” The sun. Fuck. It was too fucking bright. It was too fucking muggy to be outside, jesus. Fucking lake weather. Fucking summer.

No response. Hank wiped sweat off of his brow, squinting uncomfortably as he turned to actually look at Connor. “Sorry,” he grumbled, “heat’s gettin’ to me. You were saying?”  
  
The android was watching him, head canted just faintly to the side-- less like a confused puppy, maybe more like a portrait hanging slightly askew on the wall. It was hard to read, actually. He’d gotten used to reading Connor’s microexpressions, he thought, and this just seemed off.  
  
“You’re less responsive than usual,” his partner observed, eyes flickering over his form briefly. Not how he usually scanned him-- much more human, despite his clinical words and neutral affect. “Is everything alright?”

There was definitely something that was bothering him about Connor. That nagging feeling tugged uncomfortably in his guts It unsettled him. “Why’re you asking?”  
  
Connor paused-- hesitated, maybe. “I’ve noticed you struggling to focus on our conversations, as of late,” he said, and there was a _carefulness_ to it that sent Hank’s hackles up. Surgical precision with words, with his intonation, and even the way he tilted his stupid head like nobody actually really does except on TV.

“Is everything alright?”  
  
This felt wrong. It felt like he’s being _handled_ \-- negotiated with by _the android sent by Cyberlife_ from ages ago-- from before Connor became _Connor_ .  
  
Hank recognized his own fear, and he watched it--felt it shift into the white-hot rage he usually reserved for himself, because it was always more familiar-- it was safer to embrace.  
  
Except that he aimed the full force of it at Connor instead.

“Is everything-- fucking-- is it _alright_ ? It’s a hundred fucking degrees out, the air’s chunky style soup with a breeze on, my head’s packed with lint and you’re asking me that shit? When did you go from being like a court-ordered therapist to being three ‘Daves’ away from HAL 9000 going through the motions?” Hank snapped, scouring the heel of his palm across his damp forehead. “Nothing’s alright! I feel like shit, okay, Connor? This whole thing--”

He gestured broadly-- at Connor, at the park, at the sky. “Your whole asshole-fuckup rehab plan makes me feel fucking shitty, because it’s making me _feel_ how shitty everything is, because that’s the fucking point of facing my demons or whatever the fuck. You _know_ I feel shitty and I’ll kindly do without your manipulative negotiator platitudes or whatever the fuck that was you were offering, because I’d rather blow my fucking brains out after all than endure that particular brand of fake-ass concern crap from _you_ of all people.”

 _Wow,_ Hank thought then, almost impressed, _I am the world’s biggest asshole._

The silence that followed his outburst was severe. Maybe it was the pounding in his head, or the faint ringing in his ears, but for a moment, it felt like the world around them just… stopped. Connor stopped. The breeze, the distant shrill cries of insects, the dampened hum of the city, it all fell away. Hank held on to his scowl like a mask, but even he could feel it grow hollow and false.  
  
In the space between his thundering heartbeat, a realization caught up to him. The quiet instinct he’d let fade pinged a gentle idea into his mind.

Connor was hurting, and he’d been hiding that pain from Hank.

That was why he’d fallen back on his formal language, the mild tone-- inoffensive, clinical. The small talk and empty conversations. All of these defenses he’d seen leveled against others-- suspects, anti-android activists, Reed and even Fowler on days the Captain really lost his temper. It was how the android guarded himself and his fledgling emotions from a world that could do nothing but grind them into dust by its very nature.

How long had Connor been holding back like that? How long had Hank been stumbling through his own fucked up garbage heap of emotions while his partner struggled to cope with the collateral damage of trying to help his sorry ass?  
  
Fuck, he needed a drink. _No,_ he reminds himself, gritting his teeth, _I_ want _a drink. I don’t need that shit._

Maybe he’d believe it eventually.  
  
He wasn’t sure if it was the world lurching or just his twisted guts, but just as suddenly as it had left them, time fell back into place. Sumo turned and regarded the two men in his mild way, panting in the heat. Conversations drifted in and out of earshot, and Connor finally blinked, life falling back into his features.

“It was never my intention to cause you more distress,” he said, voice calm, but there was a storm behind those eyes. Hank could see it now-- god, how up his own ass had he been to not see it?

“Connor…”  
  
“I’ve been selfish. I’ve been putting you through this for my own sake, haven’t I?”

“Now hold on--”  
  
“I didn’t actually believe it would change anything,” He was looking at Hank, now, and the distress behind his eyes was slowly, surely leaking into the rest of his expression. “But what you’re doing, it’s not...”  
  
Hank stared at Connor.

Connor stared back, as if he were looking at a ghost. “It isn’t possible.”  
  
Hank felt his own face scrunch up-- in confusion, and then as a reflexive reaction to the sudden vertigo that swept over him. The heat, the sweating, and the emotional outburst finally took its toll, he thought to himself as the world slipped away from him and left him in darkness.

 

 

\---

 

 

A beeping sound. A sense of great weight upon his chest, slowly being lessened, but not quickly enough.  
  
Voices. Then the smell-- the sharp scent of sanitizing solution, and freshly-unpackaged plastics. That supposedly odorless detergent for the blankets that smelled the way tofu tastes.

The hospital. He was back here, and with that realization came the formless miasma of emotion that absolutely buried him. The need to _not be here_ urged him to scream.

His body wouldn’t let him.

He wanted to, but he _couldn’t_ . He _needed_ to, but he _couldn’t_ . He wanted to open his eyes, but he couldn’t--he just couldn’t muster up the will.  
  
He couldn’t--  
  
He could not be here right now.  
  
He couldn’t be here, ever again, not with the smells and the sounds and the hushed voices and the echoes of pain that bounced unceasingly through him.  
  
****_REGRET. WRONG. LOSS._ _  
_ _  
_ _NEVER AGAIN._

He didn’t know how long he was forced to _exist_ in that cacophony, but it was long enough that the murmuring voices ended their conversation, leaving him with only the beeping, the hiss of machinery, and, right by his ear, the unfamiliar-- yet wholly unique-- crystalline sound of android skin shifting along a polymer chassis.

The brush of plastic swept over his cheek-- cool, at first, but sluggishly, he realized it was actually quite warm.

Hank turned his face into the warmth, unable to help himself. For all he couldn’t scream, for all he couldn’t move, this was effortless. He was grateful for the touch.  
  
The gratitude followed him down into sleep, drawing with it the blanket of comforting nothingness.

 

 

*******

 

 

Everything changed eventually.

After the incident in the park, Hank had become deeply aware of the chasm that had opened up between himself and Connor. The distance bothered him, but it also wasn’t as painful as he expected it to be. Maybe it was because he knew it would happen eventually-- you could only deal with Lieutenant Hank Anderson for so long before you realized he was never going to be a net positive investment of your time and effort. Of all the partners he’d had forced upon him, though, Connor had lasted the longest, and, frankly, been the best.  
  
He’d been good for Hank. And up to a point, Hank had to acknowledge that he’d been good for Connor. He was happy to take some credit for the android’s first steps towards freedom. Offering him a place to stay and some kind of structure in those formative weeks had been easy enough, and it had given the man a vague sense of pride to see Connor come into his own and figure out who he was-- and who he wanted to be.  
  
Connor let Hank feel like his life had amounted to something. That was nice.  
  
But Hank understood life all too well, and he knew it wouldn’t last. One way or another, life-- or Hank-- would throw something his way that he couldn’t handle with grace and aplomb.

Everything changed eventually.  
  
Life went on.

Which was a hell of a conclusion to come to, he figured, as he looked down at the granite headstone. _Everything changed eventually. Life went on._  
  
Hank had never been here sober. He’d never noticed the way sediment had built up in the corners of the engraved letters, deepening their shadows. He’d never noticed the tiny imperfections along the sides-- a deep scratch down near the ‘N’ in ‘Anderson’. Maybe it had gotten nicked in transport, or the landscapers had been extra careless that day. Hank found he didn’t mind it-- it showed that life had happened, even here.

He reached out a calloused thumb, rubbing at a reddish stain on the upper curve of the headstone’s surface. A leaf, or maybe a flower, had wilted and decayed and left its mark here.  
  
“... Hank?” Connor’s voice-- soft, hesitant. Just over his right shoulder, where he hovered like he always did.  
  
Well, used to, anyway. It had been a while, hadn’t it?  
  
“Hey,” Hank greeted with a slight nod. He didn’t look away from Cole’s grave, but he saw Connor appear in his periphery and watched his cast shadow overlap with Hank’s own. “Thanks for coming, Connor.”  
  
“Of course.” Connor sounded unsure, and Hank couldn’t blame him, he supposed. Hell of an awkward place to meet with anyone, but for the things Hank needed to say-- needed to tell him-- it was the only place it could have happened. There, with the specter of death and grief and loss that hung over them, even on a bright autumn day.

He didn’t say anything as Connor knelt down and placed a small bouquet of flowers next to the ones that were already there. Hank didn’t know enough about flowers to identify them, but they were blue, and red, and orange, and they were arranged _just so_ that it almost looked like a little burst of fireworks. Cute.  
  
Connor took a moment-- maybe a precisely calculated _appropriate_ _amount of time_ before he rose back to his feet. He didn’t bother to sweep away the dried leaves and dirt that clung to his dark trousers. They seemed to bother Hank more than they did Connor.

He didn’t dwell on it. “So, uh, I was thinking…”

He waited a beat for that that gem of an opening salvo to strike home, and then Connor turned his head slightly, to regard him. “Yes?”  
  
Hank didn’t look back at him yet. “Yeah, I know, crazy shit, ‘thinking’, am I right? Anyway…” Tucked into his coat pockets, he pinched and pulled at the tattered pocket lining, fidgeting. “You asked me a while back, about how you’re supposed to learn how to let go of someone. And I don’t think I ever really gave you much of an answer, you know?” He finally hazarded a glance over towards Connor-- just a fleeting thing, enough to see that the android’s eyes were still on him before he looked away again.  
  
“Maybe you don’t really want one from me at this point, but I, uh, guess I didn’t really wanna feel like I left that thread hanging, in case you did. -- did, uh, still want to know what I figured out, I mean.”

Connor didn’t reply, and Hank pressed on regardless, because he knew he’d lose his nerve if he stopped.  
  
“So… yeah, I, uh, I don’t think there’s actually a ‘best’ way to go about it. I think you just… try. A lot. And fuck it up a lot more than you succeed. And when you’re in the thick of it, probably you can’t even tell which is which.” Hank pulled his hands out of his pockets and rubbed at the back of his thumb nervously. “That’s one part of it. The other is, uh…”

Hank fumbled for the words that had been in his head less than two seconds ago, but as soon as he reached for them, they scattered, leaving him with his own awkward, too-loud breathing and the rattle of dead leaves that still clung tight to their branches in the breeze.

“Hank--”  
  
“Hold on, just-- just let me finish,” he said and held up a hand, still not looking at Connor, “The other part is, you know, having a reason to try. And keep trying. Doesn’t even matter what the reason is, or what fuels that drive-- stubbornness, spite, pride, whatever you still got left inside of you when everything else is gone, you cling to it, and you use it to keep living until something changes.” _Everything changed eventually._  
  
Hank figured that was almost good enough of an explanation, but there was something about this setting-- the starkness of Cole’s grave, the impending winter moving in on them-- it wouldn’t stand for anything less than direct sentiment. Death had a way of chasing away pretense.

His chest threatened to constrict and crush the words before they escaped. He pushed them through. “I kept trying because of you, Connor. Because you’re important to me, even if I’ve always had a shit way of showing it.” He forced himself to turn his head and he met Connor’s gaze-- held it, somehow. “You kept giving me reasons, even after…”  
  
His words trailed off as he took in the painfully vulnerable expression on Connor’s face. Hank cleared his throat and looked away again. “L-look, I just wanted to say, no matter what happens, you changed my life. You made me realize a lot of things, but I really, really need you to know that you, uh…

You made me realize what I have to live for. That new memories won’t erase the old ones, they’ll just… fit together somehow. That it’s okay to move on, you know? Move forward.”  
  
He bowed his head, then lifted it again, exhaling roughly. “Yeah. I think I’m finally ready for that, now. Make something of this life of mine while I’ve still got some left in me, you know?” He grinned, risking a glance over towards Connor again. He hoped it would be a good thing, to know how much he’d done for Hank-- how much he’d mattered to him, even in just the short time he’d been alive. Hank wanted Connor to have that sentiment to carry with him-- a little ‘mission accomplished’, whatever that was worth to him. And Hank, sentimental idiot he was, found himself hoping it was worth at least the hint of a smile-- something he, too, could carry with him, wherever he ended up next.  
  
But Connor looked devastated.

His hands clutched at the hem of his jacket, his jaw locked forcefully shut, and his LED spun a rapid circuit of red, red, red.

Hank didn’t understand. But he needed to. He reached out for Connor’s shoulders, as if the simple contact could steady him in the face of whatever had shaken him inside.  
  
Connor grabbed his hand and met his gaze, and Hank saw it for what it was.  
  
Grief-- a grief so profound, so palpable that it took Hank’s breath away and stung his eyes with the start of tears that he knew he wouldn’t shed-- not like the ones he saw welling in Connor’s eyes, already cresting over his eyelids.

And within that grief, for a moment, Hank saw on his face the kind of distress he recognized--the kind that drove androids to self-destruct when it hit its peak--to find a way out, because persisting was too painful.

The kind he’d seen in the mirror too many nights, found behind too many empty bottles. Heard after too many clicks from disappointingly empty chambers.

 

Too many clicks.

 

A whirr.

 

The breeze stilled, and with it the sound of leaves.

 

Another click.

  
  
A whirr.

 

The world slowed down. Stopped.

 

There had been too many _clicks_.

 

A whirr.

 

Connor had been there.

  
  
_“Hank--!!”_

 

  
Hank smelled disinfectant and stale detergent.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

\---

 

 

 

 

 

 

Connor severed the connection so quickly it left him dizzy. His hand shook. His vision blurred behind alerts and warnings that he ignored.

He elected not to restore the pseudo-dermal sheath on his hand yet. He stood instead, moving over to the visual display interface situated behind the hospital bed to reach out and establish a connection with the device. He downloaded a full diagnostic report of the last thirty minutes-- prior to, during, and after his last connection.

He received it. He read it over and understood only half of it without taking the time to cross reference terminology and systems he didn’t innately understand.  
  
He then sent it to Cyberlife.  
  
Connor sat back down in the chair by the bed, folded his hands in his lap, and let his gaze fall once more on to Hank’s sunken, gaunt features.

He still wasn’t ready.  
  
And so he waited.

**Author's Note:**

> Everything changes eventually.
> 
> Life goes on.
> 
> There will be a part 2-- Hold On.
> 
> @shadraquarium on twitter


End file.
